Guides

There’s not much that the disastrous real estate market hasn’t impacted. Now we see it’s even hurting the feds ability to sell seized properties.

By Ed White
Associated PressDETROIT – Federal prosecutors twice pursued a former autoworker suspected of running a multimillion-dollar drug operation. The first attempt fizzled when Clarence Carson died shortly after an indictment. The second? Blame it on the collapse of Detroit’s real-estate market.
The government recently abandoned a plan to sell nearly three dozen properties – land, houses and strip malls – believed to have been acquired by Carson through heroin, marijuana and cocaine sales.
“The market tanked,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Ziedas said. “If we were able to effectively market these and come up with some kind of return, we would have done it.”
Like any seller, the U.S. Marshals Service, which is in charge of getting rid of assets grabbed by the Justice Department, is finding that location is the key to real estate these days.
“We are dealing with markets that have either declined slightly or tanked in different regions,” said Dave Turner, a Marshals Service spokesman in Washington.